Chuil, South Sudan — Displaced people who sought refuge isolated from conflict South Sudan were villages refused life support Eyewitnesses and aid groups said the government was reporting rising deaths there.
The Associated Press spoke with people who fled the swampy Nyatim community in recent weeks. He said there was very little food and no clean water in such an isolated place, so he had to use Starlink connection to call for help.
However, when aid workers reached out to South Sudanese authorities with a request to provide emergency relief, it was rejected. There were no reports that dozens of people had died, including some from apparent starvation.
“It was a ‘no’ from the local and national authorities and the military,” said Yashovardhan, the head of Doctors Without Borders’ mission in South Sudan, who goes by one name. “Meanwhile, people are eating leaves and roots to survive.”
The U.N. World Food Program, which has generally remained silent about the years-long issue in South Sudan, also told the AP that it had been blocked despite “numerous engagements with both national and local authorities,” according to the agency’s country director, Adham Effendi.
This has happened repeatedly in South Sudan, where people fought for years for independence from Sudan and then attacked each other. Whichever side controls the aid is accused of withholding it from the other, and civilians suffer losses.
This time, the fight has escalated Since Riek Machar, a long time rival President Salva Kiir was suspended as first vice president and placed under house arrest for alleged subversion last year. The two led opposing forces in a civil war that left an estimated 400,000 people dead before a 2018 peace deal brought them into a fragile unity government.
In December, opposition forces supporting Machar captured military posts in Jonglei state. Government forces counter-attacked the following month.
On 7 February, troops reached the outskirts of the town of Lankien, where a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders had been hit by an airstrike a few days earlier. Residents described artillery fire before soldiers stormed the town in armored vehicles.
Thomas Nim was also among those who fled. With his pregnant wife, three children and mother, he walked through the swampland in the hope that the soldiers would not pursue them.
He and several others soon filled Nyatim, which was about a day’s walk away.
“Some of the most vulnerable people, like the elderly and children, ended up in Nyatim because they couldn’t take it any further,” said Nim, a 43-year-old pharmacist.
As days passed and people began to die without food or good water, they called out for help. But no one came.
Gatkhor Duale, an opposition official coordinating aid in Jonglei state, blamed county commissioner James Bol Makui for blocking humanitarian access. Duell said Makui does not want aid to reach people “who support the opposition”, especially when they are near government-held areas.
Makui acknowledged that access to Nyatim has been restricted, but added that estimates of its displaced population – 30,000 according to Doctors Without Borders – are exaggerated. He accused South Sudan’s main opposition group, known by its initials SPLM-IO, of placing civilians in Nyatim to attract support and gain a foothold near the county seat of government.
Nim, a pharmacist, said there were no opposition forces in the area.
Concerns about aid diversion are not without precedent. Armed groups, including the military, in South Sudan have a long history of diverting humanitarian supplies for military purposes. According to the United Nations, fighters looted more than two dozen humanitarian-run health facilities during recent fighting in Jonglei.
Doctors Without Borders said it first asked Nyatim for help on 22 February. He asked for help again on 3 March after hearing reports of deaths. In late March, the medical charity issued a statement drawing attention to its efforts.
Delivering aid to South Sudan is never easy. The infrastructure is bad. River transport, where available, has been attacked. Approval from authorities is required.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis has deepened. In March, more than half of the more than 1,000 children examined by Doctors Without Borders in Chuil, a community where the government of South Sudan has allowed humanitarian access, were acutely malnourished.
Aid workers are overwhelmed. In February, Doctors Without Borders began expanding the four-bed facility, first to 60 beds, then to 80 beds. Now it is increasing to 100 beds.
Others are leaving remote Nyatim and going home to the ruins.
“People are returning to their homes,” said Koang Pajok, one of them. “There was no food and shelter.”
Unable to reach the area by road or river, the World Food Program has airlifted 415 metric tons of food into Chuil since March, said country director Effendi.
But as civilians come asking for help, so too do Kalashnikov-wielding young men. Some worry that Chuil may be targeted.
One morning in April, a plane circling overhead attracted anxious onlookers.
“This is a surveillance plane,” said Gal y Tut, who arrived a few days ago with his wife and newborn child. He recalled seeing a similar aircraft over Lankien on the day he said at least 11 civilians were killed in an airstrike in December.
An elderly man advised not to gather at one place and crowds were more likely to be targeted.
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